1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to receptacles in general, and particularly to a receptacle having a female-side plate-like member for receiving a plug having a Male-side plate-like member.
2. Description of Related Art
Various electronic devices such as a personal computer are provided with a receptacle based on a universal serial bus (USB) standard for connection to peripherals or the like.
USB connectors are classified into an A type disposed on a personal computer side and a B type disposed on a peripheral side. A receptacle of a USB-A standard is assembled into an opening formed on an outer surface of a chassis of a personal computer, and a plug connected thereto is attached to an end of an apparatus such as a cable or a flash memory. The receptacle has a configuration in which a plate-like member (female-side plate-like member) having a signal terminal disposed therein is installed in the opening of the chassis, the plug has a configuration in which a plate-like member (male-side plate-like member) having a signal terminal disposed therein is received in a metal case, and the signal terminals are connected to each other by inserting the metal case of the plug into the receptacle.
Such USB connectors are generally classified into a standard (regular) type connector having been widely used and a micro type connector obtained by reducing the size of the standard type connector. The standard type connector has a merit that there is a lot of corresponding apparatuses and thus universality thereof is high, but the outer shape has a certain degree of size and, for example, the height of the receptacle is about 6.2 mm. Accordingly, when a standard type receptacle is mounted on a chassis of an electronic devices, restrictions to chassis design increase to secure the size of an opening. For example, in a chassis having a curved cross-section in which the thickness of the side of the chassis is smaller than that of the central portion thereof, there is demand for a design in which only the thickness of the opening of the receptacle is greater than those of the other parts. The demand for the decrease in thickness of a chassis becomes more marked for portable electronic apparatuses such as a laptop personal computer (laptop PC), a tablet personal computer (tablet PC), and a smart phone.
For the decrease in thickness of a USB connector, for example, a configuration in which the outer metal case is removed and the male-side plate-like member having a signal terminal disposed therein is exposed to the outside has been proposed to achieve the decrease in thickness of the plug.
However, there is no proposal for a decrease in thickness of a receptacle for achieving a decrease in thickness of a terminal-side chassis of a laptop PC, a tablet PC, or the like. Thus, there is demand for a structure capable of securing a degree of freedom in design of a chassis by decreasing the thickness of a standard type receptacle that is used for more apparatuses and has a high universality. When the thickness of a micro type receptacle decreases, it is possible to further enhance the degree of freedom in design of a chassis.